End of the Day

Continuing the pattern of a new album every other year, End of the Day came out in 1989. John Croslin was beginning to gain experience as a producer, doing more than half the tracks without co-producer Andy Metcalfe. This would lead to his total production of their next album, plus his future endeavors after the breakup of The Reivers. A very good album, it continued in the same vein as the previous. A sort of theme about the idea of “home” ran through this album, though, with songs like “Almost Home”, “Star Telegram”, “End of the Day” and “Cut Above”. Tying in to this was the album artwork which included family snapshots hung on a refrigerator. An impassioned cover of the song “Lazy Afternoon” was a highlight of the album. In addition, Hootie and the Blowfish later covered “Almost Home” (I’m still not sure whether that’s good or bad…)
Interestingly, the original publicized track listing for End of the Day had three extra songs (“Jeff, Get Me a Beer”; “Light My Way”; and “Tell Me So”) not on the final released album. These were recorded for the album (with “Jeff, Get Me a Beer” retitled to “Dude Man Hey”), so seem to have been left off at the last minute for some reason.